The Royal Botanical Gardens, located near Hamilton, Ontario, are Canada's largest public gardens. The total acreage is 2,700, though 2,400 of those acres are held as a conservation preserve. The botanic gardens are well-established and tastefully done.
There is the Rock Garden, which is built in an old quarry. A tremendous number of boulders were transported
to the site to create a multi-tiered collection of flowerbeds, ponds and wooded areas.
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Ontario Royal Botanical Gardens
Rock Garden |
There is a spectacular collection of asiatic lilies, many of which were in bloom. Apparently new varieties of these lilies are very easy to propagate, and there are now in excess of 6,500 varieties of the genus
Lilium. This count does not include a number of flowers that are called lilies, but are in different plant families. For instance, daylilies are in the genus
Hemerocallis and the family
Xanthorrhoeaceae. I took several pictures of the lilies in bloom, and they are on the Miscellany page. Here is one of them:
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Asiatic Hybrid Lily
'Baywatch' |
The garden that interested me the most was the Morrison Woodland Garden. It winds down a ravine next to the formal gardens. It is a combination of naturally-occurring plants and trees and added ones. The designers have given attention to varying and integrating the trees based on leaf forms, shapes and colors. The ground level is populated with hostas and ferns. Paths wind up and down, but limited lines of sight may the walk seem intimate and solitary.
There is also a Mediterranean garden that has an extensive collection of plants from Mediterranean climates around the globe. The unique feature of this garden is that it is contained in a conservatory. Most conservatories I have seen in northern gardens are used to house tropical plants, including palms and bananas. The atmosphere is usually quite humid. This conservatory is dry and warm.
Mileage: 91. Cumulative mileage: 6,219
